


Looming Love

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 Round Two - Team Discipline [23]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F, Gen, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-02
Updated: 2011-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 00:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lark sighed and rubbed her temples.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looming Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com

Lark sighed and rubbed her temples. She wished Niko was here, so she might take a break from her sight-powder; the ingredients were harmless enough with occasional use, but when she sprinkled it over every piece of Comas’ work it grew tiring on her eyes. Her head was beginning to pound.

            The Hub clock struck five. The sound nearly brought tears to her eyes and Lark found she was unable to sense why. She was agitated and sensitive today; the threads beneath her fingers were close to wriggling. It was time to give up, for she couldn’t work in this state and if she couldn’t work, she had no business teaching.

            She looked up at Comas, who was in the corner bent over a lap-loom. So far he had managed to map a lost sock but not Discipline itself. Lark chided herself for the thought that perhaps the boy was less afraid of the sock than the household… She drew a breath.

            “Comas?”

            He jumped and looked up, eyes wide as if he were expecting to be scolded. Lark breathed again. _When_ had she ever truly scolded him? She couldn’t think of a single time. Lark touched her leather pouch to ground herself in her compassion once more—what _was_ making her so irritable?

            “You’ve done good work today. Take a few moments to stretch your back and then you’re free for the evening, until I call you for bathing.” She plucked a coin from her pocket and snaked a thread one hole, instructing it to tie itself. Comas stood, twisted himself either way without a word and walked over; he lifted his hand when Lark revealed the coin. She dropped it onto his fingers without touching him, for he didn’t tend to like that. “You’re a free bird.”

            He gave a brief nod and ran from the room, up to his attic area. Even the Temple Gods probably didn’t know what the boy did up there—Lark certainly didn’t—but regardless he seldom came down when it wasn’t required, and he hardly left Discipline unless she urged him out. Between his privacy and taciturn nature, Lark felt she was living alone much of the time. It pained her heart, for the recollection of four sets of loud feet and mouths or her partner’s barked laughter and comments arose often; such memories made the silence heavier to her ears.

            It was useless, she thought, as she moved to one of her hanging looms, though she felt she had to try again. She usually limited herself to once a week outside of travel season—which it was—but the feeling of tension and over-sensitivity led her to the loom.

            Lark worked through the evening on her little cloth—a handswidth by a handswidth, tops—spelling and weaving, weaving and spelling. Her eyes scarcely focused, given the stress she had put on them with magic-seeing earlier, but when Winding Circle stared up at her she dropped her shuttle. It landed end-down on her thigh and pain erupted there—quite possibly blood as well—but she was uncaring. For near the Temple, there were two green knots that would not have appeared in the pattern otherwise. She touched them with two fingers, fearful they would vanish beneath her digits. They did not.

            Her joy rushed at her from every direction, gathering in her stomach with the tickle of wool; the glee and _relief_ moved up her throat like silk until she thought she couldn’t possibly contain her ecstasy. Lark yelled, breathy and modulating with her excitement. Her smile split her face as she jumped from her chair, knocking it to the floor.

            Comas was at her doorway in an instant, concern in every crease of his prematurely-aged face; one day, she would get the boy to smile as she was now. He just stared at her as if she had been replaced by something foreign and unexplained and _frightening_ , like Dedicate Crane. She laughed.

            “Tonight you’re to head to the bathhouse without me, Comas. Is that alright?”

            He nodded and hid himself halfway behind the doorframe. One of his arms rose as he pointed at Lark’s hanging loom, where the cloth still sat. “Re…re-string?”

            Lark shook her head. At least it was further proof he was learning. “Sometimes you can’t restring a repeat-pattern loom _right_ after you’ve finished…” She was breathless with joy; her words were amused as they left her smiling lips. “They’re _coming home!_ ”

            Comas paled. Visitors, to him, had never been good news. For all that Lark respected and cared for him, and often saw visitors through his eyes for empathy’s sake, she could not do it now—no matter how much he might fear Rosethorn and Briar from her stories of them. Of the things she cared about in that moment, Comas’ shyness was not highly-weighted, nor was any feeling of selfishness over the matter. Perhaps this would even teach Comas, indirectly, the importance of loom-mapping more than missing socks.

            Lark touched his shoulder gently as she left the room and—when he flinched—squeezed comfortingly. Her words were low and slow but endlessly eager: “ _They’re coming home!_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :D


End file.
